Groupware systems facilitate the collaboration of a number of computer users to collaborate in groups, for instance by enabling users to exchange electronic messages, such as emails or instant messaging. Some groupware systems offer functionality to edit, store, and retrieve information about groupware system users particularly for the purpose of such electronic messaging. Contact data handled by such contact management functionality typically comprise machine-readable identifiers and addresses of groupware system users, such as email addresses or instant messaging identifiers, and further personal information about groupware system users like name, given name, birthday, etc., and organizational information like company affiliation, job description, position in management organization, and relationships of reporting within the organization. On a general level, these attributes are handled as a set of labels or categories.
Contact information, or contact data, is presented to the user of the groupware system in the form of contact lists associated with the groupware system user, or by use of an address book application element. Typically, a groupware system user maintains a personal contact list (or a personal address book) in which the user can store and modify contact data about other groupware system users.
Personal contact lists can have a hierarchical structure and may contain multiple user groups or categories with each user category containing multiple users. Each user may belong to multiple categories and each category may contain multiple users.
However, generally, a groupware system user needs to carefully maintain his/her personal contact list in order to access correct and up-to-date information in a satisfying manner, thus requiring a substantial amount of effort.
Systems that allow (automatic) collection of “known contacts” by name or email address do not provide advanced search functionality, such as by the category of a groupware user, thus making it difficult to find an expert for a certain subject when the name of the person is not known. Further, systems that allow for automatic import of contact information from a corporate user directory do not provide complete and correct contact data about the user in a satisfying manner, because a corporate directory does not represent the rapidly changing business relationships and teamwork interactions that are characteristic for a complex matrix organization.
Consequently, there is a need for a groupware system, method, groupware server computer, groupware client computer, data processing program, computer program product, and computer data signal that automatically provides reliable, correct, and up to date contact data about groupware system users while correctly representing quickly changing and complex system user relationships.